GIFT  OF 


Contents. 
^i  The  prophecy.  1794.  By  Dr.  Timothy  Dwight.  (Pc 

•£  Assemblv  bill  no.  49.  Introduced  by  Mr.  Holder 
18,  1&65.  An  act  to  establish  an  agricultur 
mechanical  arts  college  in  Sonoma  County. 

"'S  Agricultural  college.  Address  of  Hon.  A.  A.  I 
Sept.  21,  1865. 

i>4.  Report  of  the  Committee  cof  the  Senate}  on  '  St 
university  to  whom  was  referred  memorial  of  t 
Mechanics  institute  of  San  Francisco.  Feb. 


SJLlltL      DMVSUX*      J.I1       O11C      U.       +*•$       uy       U't      *V«      WIIUA  Wft  « 
(J.C.    p. 21-22)    (Repr.   fr.   No'rth  American  rei 
an.   1871). 


^6  Report  con  the  Oakland  college  block  property, 
1871. 

*i  Our  state  university  and  th«  aspirant  to  the  j. 
cby  Gustavus  Schulte}  1872. 

*&  Columbia's  wrath,  not  sparing  the  Regents  of  i 
university  of  California  cby  Gustavus  Schult 

u9  The  resignation  of  the  Board  of  regents,  (the 
members  excepted)  dictated  by  a  sense  of  hor 
duty  cby  Gustavus  Schultei  1'874. 

Reply  of  D.  C.  Gilman  to  criticisms  of  the  Una 
California  made  by  the  Rev.  Robert  Pattersor 
Oakland,  c 1873 3  (with  two  letters  concerning 

Report  on  the  water  supply  of  the  Univ.  of  Ca] 
cby  Frank  Soule,jr.i  1874. 

Report  on  the  water  supply  of  the  Univ.  of  Ca3 
cby  a  special  committee  of  the  Regents 3  Dec, 

Report  of  the  Committees  on  public  buildings  e 
grounds  of  the  Senate  and  Assembly,  c 1875-76 

Majority  and  minority  reports  of  the  Senate  cc 
on  education  relative  to  Assembly  bill  no.  2 
c!875-763  (Concerning  abolition  of  Board  of 
etc. ^) . 

15  Report  of  the  Committee  on  education  to  the  Ac 
22d  session.  c!878:j. 

^/l6  Report'  of  the  Senate  committee  on  education.  I 

5 17  Report  of  the  cAssernblyi  committee  on  educatic 
1883. 


18  Report  of  cAs.semblyD  committee  on  Agricultu 
and  Mechanics  arts  college.  Feb.15,  18^3. 


ura] 


MINING  SCHOOLS 


TN  THE 


UNITED  STATES. 


BY 


JOHN    A.    CHURCH,    E.   M, 


Reprinted  ,l>y  permission)  from  the  North  American  Review  for  January,  1871,  at  the 
request  of  the  Trustees  of  Columbia  College. 


1871. 


MINING  SCHOOLS 


IN  THE 


UNITED  STATES. 


BY 


JOHN    A,    CHURCH,    E.  M, 


Reprinted  (by  permission)  from  the  North  American  Review  for  January,  1871,  at  the 
request  of  the  Trustees  of  Columbia  College. 


&    F^YNE,    Printers. 

1871. 


INTRODUCTION. 


COLUMBIA  COLLEGE,          / 
New  York,  February  11,  1871.  } 

JOHN  A.  CHURCH,  Esq.  : 

Dear  Sir — The  article  upon  Mining  Education  prepared 
by  you  for  the  "  North  American  Review,"  and  published  in 
the  January  number  of  that  journal  for  the  current  year, 
presents  so  complete  and  clear  a  view  of  the  state  of  this 
important  department  of  technical  education,  abroad  and  at 
home,  and  especially  of  the  wants  of  our  own  country  in 
respect  to  it,  and  of  the  provisions  which  have  been  thus  far 
made  to  supply  them,  as  to  induce  the  belief  that  it  ought  to 
receive  a  wider  circulation  than  it  is  likely  to  secure  in  the 
pages  of  the  "  Review/' 

The  trustees  of  Columbia  College,  uAder  whose  auspices 
was  founded,  a  little  more  than  six  years  ago,  the  first  school 
of  Mining  Science  erected  in  this  country,  and  the  only  one 
in  which  as  yet  this  branch  of  education  has  been  made  the 
principal,  as  it  was  originally  the  exclusive,  object,  have  been 
gratified  that,  in  your  historical  sketch,  you  have  done  justice 
to  their  efforts.  They  have  spared  no  expense  in  bringing 
together  here  all  the  instrumentalities  necessary  or  desirable 
for  imparting  instruction  in  the  several  branches  of  mathe- 
matical, mechanical,  physical,  and  chemical  science,  and  the 
applications  of  those  sciences  to  mine  engineering,  to  metal- 
lurgy, and  to  civil  and  dynamical  engineering.  They  have 
employed  professors  whose  ability  is  attested  not  only  by  their 
own  well-established  reputation,  but  by  the  honorable  success 
of  the  graduates  formed  under  their  teaching.  They  have 
aimed,  and  as  they  believe  successfully,  to  establish  here  a 
system  of  education  in  which  practice  shall  be  as  largely  as 
possible  combined  with  theory.  It  is  believed  that  there  is 
no  school  of  applied  science  in  the  country  which  is  sustained 
at  so  large  an  annual  expense  as  this.  It  is,  of  course,  not 
sustained  by  the  fees  received  from  its  students  for  tuition. 
These  have  never  exceeded,  arid  perhaps  have  hardly  equaled, 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

the  third  part  of  its  disbursements.  It  is  no  part  of  its  plan 
that  it  should  be  self-sustaining.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has 
admitted  many  students,  and  continues  to  admit  students, 
when  circumstances  justify,  free  of  all  charge  for  tuition. 

The  school  has  thus  already  contributed,  to  an  important 
degree,  and  it  is  contributing  more  and  more  largely  every 
year,  to  provide  a  class  of  men  greatly  needed  in  our  country 
for  the  intelligent  development  of  some  of  the  richest  sources 
of  our  natural  wealth,  for  increasing  the  productiveness  of 
such  as  have  been  productive,  and  for  drawing  profit  from 
others  which  wasteful  ignorance  has  hitherto  attempted  only 
with  loss  and  disaster.  It  is  only  necessary  that  the  character 
of  this  institution  shall  become  known  to  those  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  mining  and  metallurgic  industry  of  our  country, 
that  its  advantages  may  be  appreciated  and  its  usefulness 
largely  extended.  And  it  is  the  belief  of  the  trustees  that, 
by  the  republication  and  extensive  circulation  of  your  article 
above  mentioned,  something  may  be  done  to  convey  this 
knowledge  to  those  whom  it  might  benefit,  and  through  whose 
benefit  the  country  may  be  benefited  likewise. 

The  trustees  therefore  authorize  and  instruct  me  to  inquire 
whether  you  are  willrtig  to  allow  a  reprint  of  the  article 
referred  to,  to  be  made  for  their  use. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  dear  sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

F.  A.  P.  BARNARD, 
President  of  Columbia  College. 


OFFICE  OF  THE  ARMY  AND  NAVY  JOURNAL,  ) 
New  York,  February  13,  1871.  $ 

Dr.  F.  A.  P.  BARNARD,  President  of  Columbia  College  : 

Dear  Sir — Your  kind  letter  of  the  llth  is  received.  I 
shall  be  pleased  to  have  the  article  on  Mining  Schools  repub- 
lished  by  the  trustees  of  Columbia  College,  and  more  pleased 
if  it  prove  of  any  value  to  the  cause  of  intelligent  mining  in 
this  country,  or  to  the  profession  of  mining  engineering. 

I  am.  with  great  respect, 
Yours, 

JOHN   A.  CHURCH. 


SCHOOLS 


THE    UNITED    STATES 


IN  the  year  1714  the  English    Parliament  offered  the  sum  of 
twenty  thousand  pounds  to  the  discoverer  of  any  means  by  which 
the  captain  of  a  ship  at  sea  could  determine  his  position  on  the 
ocean  within  thirty  miles.      Not  even  this  shining  reward — the 
greatest,  perhaps,  ever  offered  for  a  scientific  discovery,  and  at  that 
time  a  fortune  in  itself — could  effect  the  object.     A  method  was 
proposed,  but  the  committee  to  which  it  was  referred  declared  that 
no  astronomical  tables  existed  of  sufficient  correctness  to  make  it 
of  any  value.     With  the  best  data  the  world  then  possessed,  the 
error  might  be  as  great  as  nine  hundred  miles ;  *  and  to  bring  it 
down   even   to   two   hundred   miles,  an   extensive   series  of  new 
observations  of  the  heavenly  bodies  must  be  undertaken.     Charles 
II.,  to  whom  the  report  was  made,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  on 
reading  the  letter,    "  But  I  must  have  them  observed ;"  and  he 
thereupon  founded  the  Observatory  at  Greenwich,  an  institution  to 
which  every  nation  that  has  a  marine  owes  an  incalculable  debt 
for  the  commercial  prosperity  it  enjoys,  and  upon  which  the  sailor 
in  every  clime  depends  for  the  safety  and  certainty  with  which  he 
traverses  the  ocean.     From  thirty  per  cent,  per  voyage — the  rate 
of  insurance  when  Greece  was  in  her  glory — to  the  two  and  three 
per  cent,  which  is  now  current,  the  decrease  of  the  expenses  of 

*  F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  LL.D.,  S.T.D.,  in  his  Letter  to  the  Board  of  Trustees 
of  the  University  of  Mississippi,  1858. 


f 


6  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

commerce  has  kept  perfect  time  with  the  march  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation and  the  founding  of  seats  of  scientific  learning. 

Our  own  country  presents  to-day  an  example  of  the  dependence 
of  industry  upon  knowledge  which  is  quite  as  remarkable  as 
that  given  above.  Commissioner  Ross  Browne,  in  his  report  on 
our  Western  mines,  says  that  experienced  investors  in  mining 
property  will  not  pay  for  a  mine  more  than  two  and  a  half  times 
its  yearly  profit.  That  is  to  say,  they  do  not  consider  it  a  safe 
investment  unless  it  returns  forty  per  cent,  upon  its  cost.*  The 
reason  of  this  is  plain.  With  no  means  of  educating  miners  to 
their  work,  the  conduct  of  mines  in  this  country  is  a  lamentable 
story  of  mismanagement,  energy  wrongly  directed,  and  consequent 
great  losses.  The  thousand  millions  of  gold  dollars  that  have 
been  won  from  the  ground  in  California  are  but  an  inadequate 
representation  of  the  real  wealth  that  existed  there. f  Observers 
have  estimated  the  losses  which  were  at  first  caused  by  ignorant 
and  hasty  methods  of  working  at  two  thirds  of  the  gold  really  at 
hand,  and  none  have  put  them  at  less  than  one  half.  A  better 
state  of  affairs  has  gradually  grown  up,  but  the  losses  to  this  day 
are  very  much  larger  than  they  should  be.  In  California,  however, 

*  It  is,  of  course,  difficult  to  obtain  accurate  information  of  the  market  value 
of  mines,  as  the  calculations  are  almost  always  kept  private  and  estimates 
based  upon  problematical  cases  are  not  entirely  trustworthy.  Still,  in  look- 
ing over  the  report  of  the  mining  commissioner  for  1871,  I  find  one  case 
mentioned — the  only  case  in  the  whole  book  which  gives  the  figures  necessary 
for  a  calculation — which  offers  a  basis  for  a  very  extraordinary  exhibition  of 
the  different  value  a  mine  has  in  ignorant  and  in  educated  hands.  The  mine 
is  reported  to  show  a  heavy  deposit  of  lead  ore  containing  silver  to  the 
amount  of  $400  a  ton,  and  it  is  yielding  55  tons  a  day  ;  daily  value  of  yield, 
therefore,  $22,000.  The  cost  of  smelting  precisely  similar  ores  in  the  same 
valley  is  given  at  $20  a  ton ;  maximum  cost  of  mining,  $5  a  ton ;  daily  cost  of 
mining  and  smelting  55  tons  of  ore,  therefore,  $1,375;  difference,  $20,625. 
Allowing  a  loss  of  three  per  cent,  upon  this,  we  have  a  daily  profit  of  $20,000. 
The  mine  was  sold  for  precisely  that  sum — $20,000.  Smelting  works  could 
have  been  built  for  $40,000,  so  that  the  mine  would  pay  for  itself  and  its 
smelting  works  twice  a  week  as  long  as  its  present  yield  continues.  I  do  not 
give  this  as  a  calculation  minutely  correct,  but  it  certainly  is  an  instance  of  a 
mine  whose  real  value  greatly  exceeded  its  market  price  :  and  whose  real  value 
would  probably  have  been  obtained  had  its  owner  sought  the  aid  of  an 
experienced  man. 

t  Bullion  product  of  California,  1849-1869 $948,000,000 

"  "        of  other  States  up  to  1869 315,000,000 


-Report  on  Minei,  1871.  |1, 263,000,000 

*£^u 


;  it  </ 

-*~  Aft        &  /* 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  1 

the  work  has  been  easy  to  that  called  for  by  more  difficult  ores  in 
Nevada,  Montana  and  Colorado  ;  and  if  an  investigation  could  be 
had  of  the  exact  proportion  of  precious  metal  saved  to  the  quantity 
in  the  ore,  the  story  would  be  astonishing  even  to  scientific  men. 
Without  careful  proof  it  is  impossible  to  make  men  believe  the 
reports  of  the  few  competent  observers  who  have  been  there,  so 
apparently  incredible  are  the  results  of  recklessness  and  want  of 
knowledge.  It  was  difficult  to  introduce  even  the  thinnest  entering- 
wedge  of  common  sense  into  this  hard  prejudice  against  skill  and 
study.  For  a  long  time  the  miners  refused  all  help  from  schools 
or  scholars ;  but  the  experience  of  continual  trouble  with  their 
ores,  and  the  gradually  developed  fact  that  they  often  lost  more 
than  they  gained,  have  worked  a  complete  revolution.  A  begin- 
ning having  been  made  in  New  York  in  1864,  a  number  of  schools 
of  mines,  more  or  less  praiseworthy,  have  been  founded  in  various 
parts  of  the  United  States.  In  Europe  schools  of  this  kind  are 
among  the  oldest  institutions  of  advanced  learning,  and  our  educa- 
tors naturally  look  to  them  as  the  models  upon  which  our  own 
constructions  must  be  shaped.  It  is  proposed  in  this  paper  to 
point  out  their  peculiarities,  and  to  discuss  the  requirements  of 
similar  schools  in  this  country.  / 

Like  all  other  educational  "institutions,  schools  of  mines  in 
Europe  form  part  of  the  system  of  government ;  but  unlike  the 
others,  their  officers,  instead  of  belonging  to  the  department  of 
education,  are  connected  with  that  of  mines.  That  is  to  say, 
schools  of  this  class  are  regarded  as  investments  which  are 
necessary  to  make  mining  either  profitable  or  possible.  To  the 
knowledge  of  which  they  are  the  source  the  mines  of  Europe  are 
indebted  for  their  ability  to  work  low-grade  ores ;  and  were  that 
knowledge  to  be  now  eliminated  and  the  world  thrown  back  to  its 
resources  of  a  century  ago,  hundreds  of  mines  would  have  to  be 
given  up,  and  bread  would  be  taken  from  a  hundred  thousand 
mouths. 

Three  kinds  of  schools  are  found — primary,  middle,  and  high 
schools  or  academies.  The  lower  schools  are  among  the  most 
peculiar  and  interesting  institutions  for  education  in  the  world. 
Wherever  there  are  government  mining  works  of  importance,  and 
in  some  of  the  great  private  works,  schools  are  established  for 
teaching  workmen  of  a  certain  grade  the  secrets  of  their  calling. 
They  are  called  in  Germany  Bergschule,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
high-grade  schools,  which  always  bear  the  name  jBergakademie. 


8  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

The  teachers  employed  in  them  are  the  officers  of  the  works,  who 
usually  devote  two  hours  on  two  or  three  days  in  each  week  to 
giving  plain  but  strictly  scientific  explanations  of  the  operations 
which  go  on  in  the  furnaces,  and  of  methods  of  attack  in  the  mine. 
The  nature  of  the  studies  followed  naturally  depends  upon  the 
occupation  of  the  scholar.  Those  who  work  in  the  mines  receive 
instruction  in  mining  alone  ;  and  this  instruction,  instead  of  being 
general  and  intended  to  fit  the  learner  for  the  practice  of  all  kinds 
of  mining,  is  altogether  special,  and  confined  pretty  closely  to  work 
in  mines  of  the  kind  in  which  he  is  employed. 

So,  too,  in  the  metallurgical  department,  the  instructor  makes  no 
effort  to  lay  down  a  full  course  of  metallurgy,  but  aims  to  make 
his  hearers  understand  the  furnaces  at  which  they  daily  labor,  the 
nature  of  the  chemical  changes  produced,  the  method  of  dealing 
with  accidents,  exact  details  of  construction,  and  the  like.  Thus, 
instead  of  being  eclectic  and  scientific,  the  instruction  is  confined 
to  imparting  the  traditions  of  the  particular  establishment  to  which 
the  school  is  attached.  In  this  system  we  have  one  cause  of  that 
.  remarkable  conservation  of  distinct  methods  of  treatment  which, 
until  late  years,  has  been  so  great  a  hindrance  to  German  metal- 
lurgy, and  has  prevented  the  study  and  adoption  in  one  quarter  of 
improvements  made  in  another. 

Still,  the  information  gained  in  these  places  is  a  great  advance 
on  ignorance,  pure  and  simple;  and  these  schools  are  as  much 
above  nothingness  as  the  Bergakademien,  the  centres  of  science 
and  research,  are  above  them.  The  listeners  to  these  lectures 
are  men  who,  having  had  in  their  youth  the  minimum  of  educa- 
tion required  by  law,  have,  in  a  long  course  of  severe  manual  labor, 
lost  almost  all  trace  of  what  little  scientific  or  general  information 
they  ever  gained.  It  is  a  long  ladder  by  which  a  man  climbs  up 
to  a  position  in  which  he  has  the  right  to  attend  these  lectures. 
Entering  a  metallurgical  work,  a  young  man  first  spends  two  or 
three  years  in  wheeling  slag  to  the  waste-heap ;  then  as  much  more 
time  at  each  of  the  following  steps :  wheeling  ore  to  the  mixing- 
bed,  shovelling  ore  into  the  weighing-bucket,  weighing  ore,  work 
at  the  roasting  heaps,  throwing  ore  into  the  furnace.  Here  his 
progress  is  slower,  and  he  may  remain  at  the  last  employment  five 
or  ten  years.  Finally  he  becomes  smelter  or  tapper  of  the  furnace. 
The  uneducated  man  can  rise  no  higher.  The  educated  man 
spends  much  less  time  at  each  of  these  grades,  but  go  through  them 
he  must.  He  is  usually  occupied  two  or  three  years  in  all  at  the 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  9 

practical  work,  and  then  performs  clerical  duties  in  the  office. 
Rising  higher  and  higher,  he  may  in  time  become  director  of  a 
smelting  establishment  or  a  mining  district.  The  director  of  the 
world-famous  mines  around  Clausthal,  Andreasberg,  and  Altenau, 
in  the  Upper  Harz  Mountains,  is  an  instance  of  a  man  who  has 
passed  through  the  commonest  grades  of  service  to  a  high  position  ; 
he  was  a  picker  of  ore  in  his  boyhood.  Plattner,  a  thorough 
chemist,  founder  of  the  analysis  with  the  blowpipe,  and  an  elegant 
as  well  as  scientific  writer  on  metallurgical  chemistry,  began  in  the 
same  way. 

Schools  of  this  primary  class  are  composed  of  the  educated  and 
uneducated  men,  who  have  been  fellow-workmen  in  the  same  mine, 
at  the  same  furnace ;  but  the  former  sit  in  the  rostrum,  the  latter 
on  the  benches.  The  classes  are  composed  of  men  who  have  spent 
fifteen  to  twenty-five  years  in  the  most  trying  manual  labor.  The 
refinements  of  science,  if  explained  to  them,  would  fall  on  dull 
ears.  But  they  have  been  familiar  all  their  lives  with  certain 
phenomena  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  or  others  of  intensely 
heated  furnaces,  and  these  things  they  are  interested  in  and  can 
learn  about.  A  simple  course  in  the  rudiments  of  chemistry, 
physics,  machines,  and  mining  engineering,  with  more  careful 
explanations  of  that  particular  portion  of  these  arts  which  comes 
under  their  own  observation,  teaches  them  to  go  about  their  work 
understandingly,  and  to  lay  aside  that  vague  fear,  which  the  un- 
taught often  have  in  the  presence  of  great  and,  to  them,  mysterious 
operations  of  nature  or  of  art.*  It  adds  also  greatly  to  their  effi- 
ciency as  workmen,  and  their  safety  in  circumstances  of  danger. 

In  these  remarks  on  this  lowest  grade  of  mining  schools,  I  desire 
to  be  far  from  underrating  the  value  and  ability  of  the  lecturers. 
In  small  and  obscure  mountain  towns  men  are  found  who,  in  the 

*  This  is  no  unimportant  consideration.  German  miners  of  all  grades  are 
exceedingly  superstitious,  and  retain  even  now,  after  a  century  or  two  of 
schooling,  some  of  the  observances  which  in  old  times  were  a  part  of  their 
daily  life.  Martin  Luther's  confident  belief  in  a  personal  devil  may  be  at- 
tributed to  the  traditions  learned  in  his  youth  in  the  Mansfield  mining 
region.  His  father  was  a  common  miner  at  a  time  when  the  fact  that  mines 
were  the  abode  of  unseen  and  impish  spirits  was  undisputed.  In  Saxony,  to-day, 
the  miners  would  be  alarmed  as  well  as  offended  if  any  one  were  to  descend 
the  mine  in  any  but  the  traditional  costume  ;  and  with  many,  the  salutation 
Gluck  Auf  is  given  with  religious  care  whenever  a  comrade  is  met  in  the 
passages  of  the  mine.  Such  men  require  the  most  practical  and  plainest 
teaching. 


10  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

midst  of  incessant  physical  and  administrative  labor,  have  kept  up 
with  the  march  of  science,  and  taken  care  not  only  to  make  the 
its  latest  truths  known  to  their  hearers,  but  also  to  apply 
them  in  the  conduct  of  the  works  under  their  charge.  Applied 
science  owes  to  them  some  of  the  most  remarkable  discoveries  that 
have  been  made  ;  and  they  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  done  more 
than  their  brethren  of  the  closet  in  developing  arts,  which  besides 
a  knowledge  of  science  in  its  theory  require  also  a  minute  convers- 
ance with  its  practice.  Yon  Born,  Augustin,  and  Ziervogel,  whose 
labors  in  one  branch  of  metallurgy — that  of  the  extraction  of 
silver — have  been  so  valuable,  were  all  directors  of  works. 

The  next  grade  of  school  is  one  where  young  men,  the  sons  of 
miners  or  smelters,  and  who  may  or  may  not  have  been  employed 
in  their  boyhood  in  the  works,  obtain  a  higher  kind  of  instruction. 
They  are  not,  as  are  the  learners  in  the  lower  school,  mere  work- 
men, but  may  rise  to  any  height,  though  their  future  is  usually 
that  of  overseers  or  directors  of  small  .works.  These  institutions 
are  still  called  Bergschule ;  but  the  student  spends  all  his  time  at 
study,  is  instructed  in  general  mineralogy,  metallurgy,  chemistry, 
etc.  Indeed,  his  own  abilities  are  the  only  boundary  to  his  advance. 
Often  the  successful  student  wins  the  prize  of  a  year  or  two  at  an 
Akademie,  and  has  the  advantage  of  a  thorough  scientific  education. 

These  two  varieties  of  schools  are  united,  as  at  Eisleben  and  Halle 
in  Prussia,  Chemnitz  in  Hungary,  Pribram  in  Bohemia,  etc.  ;  or 
only  the  first  kind  is  found,  as  at  Agordo  in  Italy,  Waldenberg  in 
Silesia,  and  many  other  places.  Finally,  one  or  both  will  be  found 
united  with  a  great  fiergakademie,  as  at  Freiberg  and  at  Clausthal. 
Russia,  where  everything  is  supposed  to  be  perfect  in  system,  has 
one  Bergakademie,  ten  first-class  and  a  hundred  second-class 
Bergschule.  Prussia  has  two  Akademien,  two  first-class  and  ten 
second-class  Schiile.  The  other  states  of  Europe  have  also  taken 
similar  care  to  educate  their  miners  of  all  grades. 

Of  the  mining  academies  four  may  be  considered  as  of  first  rank. 
They  are  those  of  Paris,  Freiberg  in  Saxony,  Berlin,  and  St. 
Petersburg.*  Austria,  though  far  from  lacking  in  good  schools,  has 
none  of  this  grade,  for  a  reason  which  will  be  given  further  on. 


*  The  schools  and  academies  of  Sweden  I  am  obliged  to  omit,  as  I  have  not 
seen  them.  Their  reputation  is,  however,  very  great,  and  the  academy  at 
Stockholm  should  perhaps  be  added  to  the  four  mentioned  above  as  belonging 
to  the  first  rank. 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  11 

These  institutions,  though  -working  in  the  same  field  and  giving 
instruction  upon  the  same  subjects,  are  very  different  in  their  scope. 
Perhaps  there  are  no  institutions  which  take  their  hue  so  decidedly 
from  their  teachers  as  schools  of  applied  science,  partly  because 
they  are  fewer  in  number,  more  isolated,  and  therefore  in  closer 
rivalry,  and  partly  because  the  field  of  instruction  being  smaller, 
a  man  possessed  of  unusual  powers  will  give  a  much  more 
decided  cast  to  the  studies  pursued  than  can  be  the  case  in  other 
schools.  Among  living  examples  of  this  we  see  Freiberg  cele- 
brated for  its  course  of  blowpipe  analysis  under  Bichter,  who 
follows  Plattner,  the  founder  of  blowpiping  as  a  science.  Weis- 
bach,  in  charge  of  machines  and  surveying  at  the  same  school, 
and  Kerl,  professor  of  metallurgy  at  Berlin,  also  give  to  these 
places  a  decided  character  which  often  governs  the  choice  of  a 
student. 

But  schools  have  also  their  national  characteristics,  or  owe  their 
peculiar  cast  to  the  character  of  their  founder  or  the  object  of  their 
foundation.  The  school  at  Paris  is  very  mathematical  and  scien- 
tific, following  in  this  the  bent  of  modern  French  scientific  study  ; 
Freiberg,  having  some  of  the  most  celebrated  mines  and  smelting- 
works  in  the  world  at  its  doors,  is  very  practical ;  St.  Petersburg 
does  it  best  to  be  practical,  though  situated  in  a  morass  and  with  no 
mines  within  hundreds  of  miles,  and  it  is  perhaps  as  scientific  as 
Paris.  It  combines  thorough  scientific  training  with  what  may  be 
called  object- teaching  of  the  highest  class.  Within  the  precincts 
of  the  school  is  a  very  interesting  model  of  a  mine,  dug  in  the  mud 
of  St.  Petersburg,  and  furnished  with  galleries,  shafts,  systems  of 
ventilation,  and  all  the  appurtenances  of  regular  mining.  The 
character  this  school  has  taken  accords  with  the  genius  of  Peter 
the  Great,  impressed  upon  all  enterprises  in  Russia.  He  admired 
the  achievements  of  science,  and  had  experienced  the  benefits  of 
practice  in  his  own  person. 

The  chief  peculiarity  of  the  French  school  is  its  eclectic  breadth 
of  instruction.  Besides  the  ordinary  subjects  of  study,  the  scheme 
there  embraces,  under  the  head  of  machines,  such  minutiae  of 
construction  that  the  graduates  are  fitted  to  design  machines  of  the 
greatest  variety,  whether  for  use  in  mines  or  not ;  and  under 
chemistry,  agricultural  chemistry  is  taught.  The  reason  of-  this  is 
that  France  turns  out  every  twelvemonth  more  engineers  than  she 
can  employ  in  ten  years,  and  in  that  country  graduates  of  1860  and 
earlier  years  still  come  to  the  offices  of  public  works,  railways,  and 


12  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

mines,  and  beg  for  work  at  a  thousand,  five  hundred  francs  a  year, 
anything,  in  short,  for  the  sake  of  employment.  It  is  not  to  be 
inferred  that  these  men  are  of  second-rate  ability.  Their  difficulty 
is  that  France  has  not  enough  mines  nor  works  of  any  sort  to  employ 
a  tenth  of  the  young  men  who  want  to  become  engineers.  Natu- 
rally enough,  the  schools  are  obliged  to  adopt  a  system  of  instruction 
so  varied  that  their  graduates  shall  be  fitted  for  work  of  any  kind. 
But  this  mingling  of  studies  is  not  to  be  recommended  in  countries 
where  larger  opportunities  are  offered  to  the  engineer. 

French  engineers,  however,  have  an  excellent  reputation  and  find 
employment  in  all  countries  of  the  Continent,  Germany,  perhaps, 
excepted.  The  basis  of  their  superior  training,  besides  the  excellent 
system  of  instruction,  is  in  their  thorough  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics, a  study  which  is  laid  more  at  the  foundation  of  engineering 
in  France  than  anywhere  else,  unless  the  Russian  schools  are  to 
be  excepted.  As  before  said,  the  Paris  school  is  par  excellence 
scientific.  It  has  neither  mines  nor  smelting-works  ready  at  its 
hand,  but  this  disadvantage  is  partly  neutralized  by  a  yearly  gov- 
ernment grant  to  enable  a  certain  number  of  students  to  visit  works 
in  other  countries.  To  such  travels  of  the  more  distinguished 
scholars  of  Paris  the  world  is  indebted  for  a  great  part  of  its  written 
metallurgy.  The  collections  in  this  school  are  also  very  fine,  among 
the  best  in  the  world. 

At  Freiberg  the  distinguishing  feature  is  the  opportunity  for 
practice  offered  by  the  mines  and  smelting-works.  The  ground 
upon  which  the  Saxon  mining  town  stands  is  pierced  by  so  many 
shafts  and  galleries  that  their  united  length  is  said  to  be  more  than 
five  hundred  English  miles.  They  yield  ore  of  the  greatest  variety. 
Lead,  silver,  and  copper  are  the  principal  products  of  the  works ; 
but  the  whole  number  of  these  is  said  to  be  thirteen.  Besides 
those  just  mentioned,  there  are  gold,  bismuth,  zinc,  arsenic,  realgar, 
sulphuric  acid,  blue  vitriol,  and  others.  The  works  in  which  these 
numerous  operations  are  carried  on  have  always  been  celebrated  as 
well  for  the  energy  exhibited  in  studying  new  methods  as  for 
their  commercial  importance.  Freiberg  has  given  its  name  to  the 
best  method  of  amalgamating  silver  ores,  to  numerous  discoveries 
in  smelting,  to  the  Gerstenhofer,  the  Pilz,  and  other  furnaces — 
inventions  which  have  altered  the  methods  of  working  ores  over 
the  whole  world.  In  former  times  the  profit  from  these  mines 
was  very  great.  Freiberg  was  the  royal  city  of  Saxony,  had  the 
court,  began  a  cathedral  (of  which  one  fine  doorway  now  shows  the 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  13 

promised  glories),  and  contained  sixty  thousand  inhabitants.  At 
present  its  mines,  though  largely  worked,  yield  but  little  profit, 
and  its  celebrity  is  due  more  to  its  school  than  to  anything  else. 
That  has  always  maintained  an  excellent  reputation,  and  its  pro- 
fessors are  and  have  been  among  the  most  famous  men  in  science. 
The  students  have  the  advantage  of  practice  in  the  mines, 
ore-dressing  works,  and  smelting  establishments,  and,  with  the 
exception  of  the  second  of  these,  the  practical  advantages  offered  by 
Freiberg  are  greater  than  in  any  other  school.  One  other  thing 
distinguishes  this  academy  above  every  other,  and  that  is  its  course 
in  blowpipe  analysis — a  most  important  subject,  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  the  engineer,  but  one  which  is  singularly  neglected  in  other 
European  schools.  Besides  this,  surveying,  machines,  assaying, 
and  the  theory  of  fuels  are  among  the  best  treated  subjects. 
Freiberg,  more  than  any  of  its  rivals,  is  supported  by  foreigners, 
partly  because  the  fees  required  are  upon  a  higher  scale  than 
elsewhere,  and  partly  because  it  is  a  greater  favorite  among 
students.* 


*  The  following  is  a  list  of  fees  for  the  principal  studies.     These  fees,  it 
should  be  mentioned,  are  the  property  of  the  professors,  whose  incomes  are 
usually  made  up  of   a  small  fixed  salary  a-i  professor,  a  salary  as  inspector, 
adviser,  etc.,  in  the  works,  and  fees.     The  prices  are  given  in  thalers,  worth 
72  cents  in  gold,  and  the  fee  covers  the  course  for  six  months : — 

Mathematics,  first  course  .  .  .  .  .  .20  thalers. 

Mathematics,  second  course  ......  20 

Descriptive  geometry         .  .  .  .  .  .  .20 

General  elementary  mechanics          .....  20 

Elementary  mining  mechanics    .  .  .  .  .  .18 

Machines,  first  course  .......  10 

Machines,  second  course  (construction)  .  .  .  .20 

Theoretical  surveying  .  .  .  .  .  .  15 

Practical  "  .......      20 

Theoretical  chemistry  ......  20 

Practical  "  .......      25 

Analytical         "  .  .        -  .  .  .  .  30 

Metallurgy,  general  .  .  .  .  .  .  .20 

Metallurgy  of  iron        .......  10 

Dry  assaying          ........      30 

Wet       ««  .  .    ^ 15 

Blowpipe  analysis  ........      20 

Mineralogy         ........  25 

Mineralogical  practice      .  .  .  .  .  .  .12 

Crystallography  .......  6 

Physics         .........      16 

Geognosy  ........  20 

Lithology 12 

Theory  of  veins  .......  10 

Practice  of  Petrography  and  Lithology  ....       8 


14  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

The  school  at  Berlin  is  a  transplantation  of  that  at  Clausthal  in 
the  Harz  Mountains.  Though  the  latter  has  not  been  given  up,  it 
has  lost  the  professors  whose  labors  had  made  it  famous.  Others, 
however,  have  replaced  them,  and  the  school,  though  its  prestige 
has  gone,  is  perhaps  as  good  as  ever.  Dr.  Von  Groddeck,  its 
director,  is  an  able  and  industrious  man,  a  good  instructor,  and  a 
scientific  student.  Among  the  men  who  were  transferred  to  Berlin 
is  Kerl,  the  professor  of  metallurgy  and  author  of  a  standard 
handbook  on  that  subject.  This  school  also  has  the  services  of 
Gustav  Rose,  Rammelsberg,  and  other  men,  leaders  and  even 
founders  in  part  of  the  sciences  they  have  taken  up.  It  was 
established  many  years  ago,  but  has  only  lately  begun  to  have  its 
present  almost  exclusive  importance  in  North  Germany.  It  is  the 
only  school  of  the  highest  class  connected  with  an  institute,  all  the 
others  being  independent  foundations. 

Although  Austria  has  no  one  school  where  the  sciences  of 
mining  and  metallurgy  are  taught  in  all  their  length  and  breadth, 
its  instruction  is,  nevertheless,  of  the  best  kind,  but  divided  among 
three  schools,  each  of  which  has  its  especial  field  of  operations. 
To  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria  belongs  the  honor  of 
founding  at  Chemnitz  in  Hungary,  in  1760,  the  first  academy  of 
mines  in  the  world.  At  that  early  day  the  idea  of  practical 


Mining,  first  course      .  ...  20  thalers. 

Mining,  second  course        .  .  .  .  .  .  .      20       " 

Mining  laws        ........  15        " 

Book-keeping         .  ...  .      10 

Drawing  ....  .  15        " 

Besides  these  sums  there  are  smaller  ones  to  be  paid  for  the  use  of  chem- 
icals, instruments,  etc.  The  school  expenses  of  a  student  are  perhaps  about- 
one  hundred  thalers  a  year,  some  paying  half  and  some  nearly  double  that 
sum.  Twelve  hundred  thalers  a  year,  or  eight  hundred  and  sixty-four  dollars 
in  gold,  is  the  average  expense  of  a  student  in  Freiberg. 

The  idea  of  self-support  does  not  enter  into  the  plan  of  European  schools  of 
mines,  which  are  founded  for  the  benefit  of  the  mining  service.  On  the  con- 
trary, natives  of  the  state  receive  compensation  during  their  term  of  study  on 
condition  of  entering  the  public  service.  Since  the  growth  of  the  mining 
interest  in  America,  however,  and  the  presence  of  great  numbers  of  our  young 
men  at  foreign  schools,  the  pay  exacted  from  foreigners  has  become  of  great 
importance  to  some  of  them.  At  a  time  when  the  academy  at  Freiberg  con- 
tained nearly  two  hundred  students,  not  one  quarter  of  these  were  Saxons 
intending  to  enter  the  state  service.  From  forty -five  to  fifty  were  from  the 
United  States,  and  this  fourth  part  of  the  students  paid  at  least  one  half  the 
fees  received  by  the  professors. 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  15 

in  preference  to  strictly  scientific  training,  was  uppermost.  At 
Chemnitz  the  mines  produce  gold,  silver,  and  lead  ores,  with  all 
their  complications,  requiring  the  knowledge  and  practice  of  every 
device  of  metallurgy  ;  and  that  school  is,  therefore,  the  metallur- 
gical one  of  the  three.  Leoben,  in  Styria,  is  situated  in  the  midst 
of  the  Austrian  iron  region,  and  therefore  the  school  for  the  study 
of  iron-working  is  situated  there.  At  its  head  is  Tunner,  the  best 
authority  on  scientific  iron-working  on  the  Continent.  Pribram, 
in  Bohemia,  has  very  large  and  old  mines,  and  within  the  last 
twenty-five  years  has  been  the  field  of  operations  of  Bittinger, 
undoubtedly  the  foremost  student  in  the  art  of  dressing  ores,  and 
one  of  the  most  scientific  of  inventors.  Pribram  is  his  workshop, 
containing  a  greater  variety  of  machines  than  any  other  similar 
work  in  the  world.  At  the  school  situated  here  mining  and  ore- 
dressing  are  therefore  the  principal  studies.  To  the  engineer  who 
selects  mining,  per  se,  as  his  exclusive  occupation,  the  shops  at 
Pribram  are,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting  point  in  Europe. 

This  system,  formerly  so  esteemed,  of  planting  the  school  close 
to  the  mine,  and  restricting  its  scientific  character  to  a  close 
correspondence  with  the  opportunities  for  practical  experience,  is 
now  going  out  of  favor.  Of  the  four  principal  academies  in 
Europe,  I  have  already  shown  that  three  are  situated  far  from 
mines.  Paris  and  St.  Petersburg  are  so  far  from  the  mining-field 
that  "  practical  courses"  are  impossible.  Berlin  has  the  advantage 
of  the  Clausthal  mines  for  the  training  of  her  students  in  the 
summer  months.  The  additional  advantages  offered  by  a  great 
social  and  scientific  centre  make  the  situation  of  this  school 
perhaps  the  best  of  any  in  Europe.  The  Austrian  government, 
following  the  desire  of  all  its  engineers,  is  now  considering  a 
scheme  for  the  union  of  its  three  schools  in  one  academy  of  the 
first  class.  Austrian  engineers  have  found  themselves  hampered 
in  their  practice  by  the  too  exclusive  direction  of  their  early 
studies  to  one  separate  division  of  a  subject,  which,  however 
comprehensive,  is  still  homogeneous.  In  point  of  fact,  nothing 
could  be  more  unfortunate  than  this  seclusion  of  a  school  in  a 
mining  town.  The  studies  should  necessarily  give  a  fair  impor- 
tance to  each  branch  of  the  subject ;  and  this  cannot  be  done  if 
the  attention  and  observation  of  the  students  is  concentrated  on 
only  one  class  of  mines.  A  school  situated  over  a  mine  does  not 
turn  out  mining  engineers  in  general,  but  coal,  iron,  lead,  or 
copper  workers,  as  the  case  may  be.  When  undue  importance  is 


16  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

given  to  one  metal  or  ore,  the  rest  suffer ;  and  no  good  school  can 
find  illustrations  of  a  full  course  in  one  region.  Wherever  it  is  it 
will  be  separated  from  the  practice  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
subject,  and  therefore  its  location  defeats  the  very  purpose  of  its 
existence.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  reported  a  year  or  two  ago 
in  Freiberg — on  what  authority  it  was  not  stated — that  a  commis- 
sion, sent  by  the  Berlin  government  to  ascertain  the  best  seat  for  a 
great  school  of  mines  for  the  North  German  Union,  had  reported 
in  favor  of  that  place.  This  step,  if  made,  would  be  in  violation 
of  the  lessons'  of  European  experience  ;  and  even  if  this  report  be 
true,  it  is  still  doubtful  whether  such  a  concentration  of  schools 
will  ever  take  place.  The  University  of  Berlin  would  be  loath  to 
abandon  so  excellent  a  member  as  its  Bergakademie,  and  the 
Prussian  government  is  too  anxious  to  see  Berlin  a  "  Weltstadt" 
to  suffer  one  of  its  most  important  institutions  to  be  dismem- 
bered. 

Although  for  the  number,  present  value,  and  future  promise  of 
its  mines,  America  may  be  called  distinctively  the  mining  country 
of  the  world,  it  was  not  until  1864  that  we  severed  the  bonds  of 
our  dependence  upon  Europe  in  the  matter  of  instruction.  Up 
to  that  time  we  sent  our  young  men  abroad  for  their  technical 
education ;  and  on  their  return  they  brought  home,  not  only  men 
educated  to  work  at  particular  kinds  of  mining,  and  the  sectional 
prejudices  which  hamper  foreign  schools  of  mines,  but  too  often 
antiquated  ideas  of  management  as  well,  too  cumbrous  for  use  in 
the  American  field.  They  copied  the  faults  of  foreign  engineers ; 
and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  foreigners  do  not  succeed  in  our  mines. 
A  German  who  has  no  knowledge  of  mining  may  succeed  as  well, 
after  living  here  long  enough  to  imbibe  a  portion  of  American 
adaptability  and  pluck,  as  an  American  who  also  knows  nothing 
about  it.  But,  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  it  is  still  true  that  a 
foreigner,  who  has  studied  at  home,  and  is  quite  ready  to  enter  an 
establishment  there  and  pursue  the  regular  round  of  promotion 
with  good  reputation  and  even  distinction,  will  be  much  more 
likely  to  make  a  failure  here  than  his  uneducated  brother  who  has 
been  long  enough  in  the  country  to  learn  American  ways  of  work- 
ing. In  this  remark  I  broach  no  theory,  but  give  the  general 
opinion  of  miners  in  the  West.  A  few  foreigners  have  distin- 
guished themselves  there ;  but  an  experienced  miner  will  often 
prefer  to  trust  a  tyro  born  in  America  rather  than  a  foreigner 
fresh  from  home  and  with  all  his  knowledge  new.  And  the  reason 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  17 

of  this,  instead  of  being  an  argument  against  mining  schools,  is 
an  argument  for  them,  but  for  schools  in  the  right  place. 

There  is  an  inherent  difference  in  the  pure  and  the  applied 
sciences,  in  that  while  the  rules  of  the  former  are  forever  true  and 
unchanging,  the  same  in  Europe  and  in  America,  and  in  India  or 
Patagonia  as  well,  the  latter,  by  the  very  fact  of  their  application 
to  given  circumstances,  and  to  requirements  of  fixed  conditions, 
have  no  immutable  laws,  except  such  as  they  borrow  from  the 
pure  sciences.  The  laws  of  chemistry  are  fixed  the  world  over ; 
but  operations  in  the  industrial  arts  that  succeed  perfectly  in 
England  or  America  fail  in  India.  Nor  is  distance  a  necessary 
element  in  this  diversity.  Meteorological  differences,  obscure 
variations  in  material,  and  the  like,  seriously  affect  similar  opera- 
tions, even  when  they  are  carried  on  at  no  great  distance  apart. 
In  nothing  is  the  diversity  of  nature  more  apparent  than  in  the 
composition  of  the  earth.  The  life  of  the  mining  engineer  is  spent 
in  applying  the  principles  of  science  to  this  immensely  varied 
mass.  Mines  are  not  only  very  variable  among  themselves,  but 
the  same  mine  differs  in  its  height  and  its  depth,  in  its  length  and 
its  breadth.  By  the  .very  nature  of  things,  the  engineer  must 
know  what  differences  of  treatment  the  components  of  this  mass 
require.  This  can  certainly  be  ascertained  as  well  by  the  foreigner 
as  by  the  native.  But  in  addition  to  these  purely  scientific  ques- 
tions are  others  more  embarrassing  yet.  There  is  the  eternal 
question  of  profit,  with  its  complications  of  wages,  prices  of  mate- 
rial, transportation,  etc.,  and  often  political  and  national  charac- 
teristics, which  must  be  understood  as  well.  It  is  in  this  latter 
part  of  an  engineer's  requirements  that  the  foreigner  fails;  and 
the  greater  his  experience  abroad  the  more  likely  is  he  to  fail  here. 
For  mining  engineering,  in  which  term  I  include  metallurgy  and 
all  the  branches  of  knowledge  which  the  conduct  of  mines  and 
smelting-works  demands,  is  not  merely  a  special  application  of 
science  to  industry,  but  it  is  for  each  engineer  a  special  selection  of 
some  branch  of  a  great  subject.  A  science  that  requires  such 
strict  devotion  requires,  too,  particular  instruction.  Even  in  the 
beginning  the  student  finds  it  advantageous  to  select  his  particular 
field  of  labor,  and  apply  his  best  powers  to  its  study. 

In  Europe  this  is  true  in  a  much  higher  degree.  Schools  there 
owed  their  foundation  to  the  desire  of  perpetuating  a  race  of  men 
who  understood,  not  the  laws  of  science,  but  the  technicalities  of 
the  particular  mine  or  works  with  which  the  school  was  connected. 


18  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

For  the  mining  schools  of  the  lowest  grade  were  founded  almost 
before  there  was  any  science,  and  when  instruction  was  altogether 
practical.  They  have  themselves  been  the  cradles  of  science  and 
research. 

Much  of  this  methodical  adherence  to  tradition  is  still  retained, 
not  so  much  in  the  schools  as  in  the  works  where  the  engineer 
always  finishes  his  studies  with  two  or  three  years'  practice.  In 
the  first  steps  of  his  instruction  he  begins  by  wheeling  a  barrow- 
ful  of  ore ;  but  not  a  step  may  he  stir  until  his  thumbs  are  in  the 
true  traditional  position,  where  the  thumbs  of  all  miners  who  have 
gone  before  had  rested.  From  the  beginning  his  drill  is  like  the 
drill  of  the  soldier.  He  does  everything  by  a  fixed  method,  which 
has  in  it  no  inherent  reason  for  being  used  in  all  places  and  at  all 
times. 

This  cannot  be  done  in  America,  and  the  man  who  has  learned 
to  rely  upon  fixed  rules  in  small  things,  and  have  men  about  him 
who  are  accustomed  to  one  way  and  one  method,  finds  himself 
unable  to  work  when  he  crosses  the  ocean.  Wages,  habits  of 
work,  character  of  workmen,  all  is  new  and  everything  confounds 
him.  Engineering,  like  the  law,  consists  not  so  much  in  the  appli- 
cation of  abstract  principles  as  of  good  precedents  to  a  given 
problem.  And  the  trouble  with  a  foreign  engineer  is  that  his 
precedents  are  all  wrong;  they  cannot  be  applied  here.  There- 
fore, for  the  real  welfare  of  our  mines  as  well  as  for  the  dignity  of 
our  nation,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  haye  our  own  schools  of 
mining  science. 

This  necessity  being  conceded,  the  question  arises,  Can  we  intro- 
duce the  foreign  system  entire,  with  its  instruction  for  workmen 
of  every  class?  Unfortunately,  we  cannot.  The  lower  schools 
depend  so  closely  upon  practice  in  the  works  that  they  cannot  be 
carried  on  without  the  consent  of  private  owners  or  the  establish- 
ment of  government  works.  Both  of  these  supports  are  closed  to 
us,  for  the  government  is  opposed  to  public  works  of  profit,  and, 
great  as  the  advantage  of  educated  workmen  would  be  in  smelt- 
ing-works,  there  is  not  the  least  likelihood  that  any  company, 
however  important  its  operations  were,  would  be  willing  to  give  its 
workmen  the  necessary  instruction.  We  are,  therefore,  forced  to 
build  our  house  from  the  roof  down — to  found  the  mining  academy 
at  once. 

It  is  evident  that,  in  establishing  these  schools,  care  must  be 
taken  to  restrict  their  number  and  to  place  them  in  well-chosen 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  19 

situations.  It  is  well  for  America  that  experience  in  Europe  has 
demonstrated  the  needlessness  of  placing  the  school  at  the  mine's 
mouth.  Here  it  would  be  impossible  to  obtain  in  a  small  mining 
community  the  support  required  to  maintain  expensive  professor- 
ships, collections,  and  libraries.  Such  an  institution  needs  the 
nourishment  only  to  be  obtained  from  the  innumerable  rills  of 
knowledge  and  wealth  which  flow  into  great  cities.  In  Europe 
the  professors  are  considered  as  necessary  to  the  development  of 
the  mines  as  the  actual  directors,  and  draw  their  pay  from  the 
mining  department  of  the  government ;  the  collections  are  filled  by 
the  constant  contributions  of  the  mines,  and  all  specimens 
which  are  found  belong  to  the  schools,  for  profit  or  preservation ; 
the  libraries  are  filled  with  works  written  by  the  professors  and 
the  directors  of  government  establishments.  But  in  America  all 
these  things  must  be  paid  for  by  school  fees,  yearly  gifts,  or  en- 
dowments. It  is  far  better  to  concentrate  these  supplies  upon  a 
few  well- supported  schools  than  to  attempt  a  thousand  diversions 
of  the  resources  at  hand,  by  adding  a  course  on  metallurgy  or 
mining  to  each  of  the  schools  of  technical  science,  or  each  of  the 
colleges  in  the  country.  Indeed,  such  an  addition  is  far  from 
making  a  mining  school  out  of  these  institutions.  It  is  not  merely 
that  a  school  of  this  kind  must  have  its  lectures  on  mines, 
machines,  metallurgy,  mineralogy,  geology,  chemistry,  and  other 
subjects,  but  these  must  be  made  both  generally  complete  and 
especially  adapted  to  the  engineer's  wants.  A  school  of  mines  is 
a  great,  complex,  comprehensive  machine,  requiring  many  men, 
who  all  work  with  one  and  the  same  end  in  view — to  fit  the  young 
engineer  before  them  to  grapple  with  a  subject  which  has  puzzled 
the  wisest  for  centuries,  and  which  is  every  day  coming  into  closer 
union  with  all  the  other  sciences,  from  meteorology  to  hygiene. 

The  problem  presented  to  us  is  to  establish,  upon  the  American 
system  of  self-support,  schools,  with  all  their  expensive  professor- 
ships, collections,  and  libraries,  which  shall  in  every  respect  equal 
the  foreign  institutions.  It  is  well  for  us  that  experience  has 
proved  great  cities  to  be  the  proper  seats  for  them.  It  is  well  for 
us  that  we  start  when  science  is  older  and  the  errors  of  our  rivals 
have  been  exposed. 

At  present  there  is  but  one  fairly  established  school  of  this  class 
in  the  country — that  in  New  York.  Institutions  which  bear  the 
the  name  of  schools  of  mines  are  also  to  be  found  in  New  Haven, 
Boston,  Troy,  Philadelphia,  Ann  Arbor,  and  many  other  places. 


20  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

But  those  where  the  instruction  is  general  and  complete,  as  at 
Cambridge  or  New  Haven,  lack  the  students  necessary  to  form  a 
living  school,  while  the  others  have  no  claim  to  the  title  they  have 
taken,  except  by  virtue  of  a  course  of  lectures  on  metallurgy  or 
mining  tacked  on  to  their  regular  studies.  The  latter  are  no  more 
schools  of  mines  than  is  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point, 
where  a  course  on  metallurgy  has  been  given  for  years.  They 
lack,  not  only  the  purpose,  the  singleness  of  aim,  the  undivided 
attention  to  one  absorbing  subject  without  which  a  school  of  this 
kind  has  no  life,  but  also  the  support  necessary  to  carry  on  so  ex- 
pensive an  institution. 

The  position  of  our  mining  fields  is  another  ruling  consideration 
both  in  respect  to  number  and  position  of  our  schools.  In  a 
country  covered  in  every  part  by  mines,  any  division  into  districts 
must  be  arbitrary.  But  by  taking  other  elements  into  the  prob- 
lem, we  shall  find  it  not  so  difficult  to  point  out  the  limits  of  these 
fields,  and  the  best  position  of  the  schools.  These  elements  are 
distance,  and  what  may  be  called  the  educational  spirit  of  the 
different  regions.  Thus  it  is  plain  that  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific 
are  too  far  apart  to  be  well  brought  within  one  boundary, 
and  the  same  is  perhaps  true  of  Lake  Superior  and  the  Atlantic 
States.  But  are  we  to  make  one  district  north  and  another  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  one  east  and  another  west  of  the 
Alleghany  Mountains?  Certainly  not.  Great  as  is  the  mining 
industry  over  all  this  region,  far  surpassing  that  on  the  Pacific 
side,  it  is  almost  entirely  divided  between  coal-mining  and  iron- 
working.  The  training  of  engineers  for  this  business  should  by 
all  means  be  concentrated  in  one  school,  which  can  also  with  ease 
look  after  the  lead- works  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  zinc  and 
copper  industries  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  South.  New  York  is 
the  proper  place  for  this  school.  It  unites  the  qualities  of  wealth, 
literature,  and  science ;  and  by  its  position  as  the  commercial 
centre  of  the  country,  a  school  there  has  the  advantage  of  aid  from 
innumerable  sources.  Its  communication  with  all  the  Atlantic 
and  Mississippi  Valley  States  is  also  perfect ;  and  as  to  cost  of 
living,  which  is  supposed  to  be  so  excessive  in  that  city,  a  young 
man  can  study  in  New  York,  with  all  the  high  fees  and  cost  of 
living,  for  the  same  sum  that  students  spend  in  German  country 
towns.* 


*  The  officers  of  the  New  York  School  have  published  an  estimate  of  a 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  21 

There  is  nothing  to  prevent  Lake  Superior  educating  all  its 
engineers  in  New  York  for  years  to  come.  It  is  now  within 
forty-eight  hours'  travel  of  New  York,  and  the  peculiar  necessities 
of  its  mines  can  be  studied  by  men  working  in  New  York.  But 
in  the  progress  of  the  educational  spirit  which  is  sure  to  take  place 
in  America,  the  school  in  New  York  will  become  overcrowded. 
There  is  a  limit  to  the  number  of  men  who  can  study  the  same 
subject  in  the  same  school  with  profit.  Probably  the  largest  class 
one  professor  can  take  thorough  care  of  may  be  put  at  fifty  schol- 
ars. For  a  three  years'  course,  such  as  New  York  has,  this  gives 
a  hundred  and  fifty  regular  students  as  the  maximum  strength  of 
a  thoroughly  efficient  school  of  mines.  I  may  say,  in  passing, 
that  fifty  engineers  a  year  would  be  a  small  supply  for  this  coun- 
try, but  even  this  is  never  attained.  Instruction  in  these  schools,  if 
well  conducted,  is  severe,  and  it  is  a  wonderful  success  to  graduate 
more  than  twenty-five  or  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  students.  Of  those 
who  do  graduate,  not  more  than  one  half  go  into  the  practice  of 
their  profession,  the  others  turning  off  into  various  channels  of 
business.  When,  therefore,  the  educational  spirit  rises  sufficiently 
high  to  crowd  the  New  York  school,  the  best  disposal  of  the  over- 
flow would  be  to  an  institution  in  the  Lake  Superior  region, 
which  could  look  after  both  the  Lake  region  proper  and  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley.  But  until  that  high-tide  mark  is  reached  in  New 
York,  and  the  educational  spirit  at  the  Lake  has  risen  suffi- 
ciently, any  school  planted  there  would  have  but  a  cramped  ex- 
istence and  a  limited  efficiency. 

As  for  the  Pacific  slope,  the  kind  of  mining  and  metallurgy  car- 
ried -on  there,  confined  almost  entirely  to  gold,  silver,  and  lead 
ores,  and  the  individualism  of  the  methods,  as  well  as  the  remote- 
ness of  the  district,  point  to  the  necessity  of  a  school  in  that  part 
of  the  country.  For  this  San  Francisco  is  the  proper  place,  as 
the  centre  of  educational,  scientific,  and  commercial  forces  on  that 
side  of  the  continent.  The  new  University  of  California  is  on 


student's  expenses  in  New  York,  which  is  worth  reproducing.  It  includes  the 
yearly  fee,  $200,  and  estimates  for  books,  instruments,  apparatus,  and  ex- 
penses of  living  for  thirty-five  weeks,  calculated  upon  a  minimum  and  a 
maximum  basis.  It  it  as  follows : 

Minimum.        Maximum. 
Preparatory  year     .......        $507  $640 

First  " 515  655 

Second     ".......    528        670 

Third      «   .  535        682 


22  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

the  point  of  establishing  such  a  school,  and  it  will  have  some 
advantages  over  any  other  in  this  country.  Though  the  mining 
interest  of  the  Western  States  and  Territories,  with  all  their  gold 
and  silver,  is  not  to  be  compared  to  that  of  the  Atlantic  half  of  the 
continent,  yet  the  educational  spirit  of  the  people  in  regard  to 
mining  is  much  higher  than  anywhere  else,  as  is  shown  by  the 
eagerness  with  which  they  welcome  the  foundation  of  the  new 
school,  and  by  the  lively  expectation  they  have  of  important  re- 
sults from  it.  In  the  East  only  scientific  men  have  participated  in 
similar  feelings  toward  the  New  York  school ;  but  in  California 
and  Nevada  it  is  not  merely  the  student  of  science,  the  mine  own- 
er, or  the  mine  superintendent,  but  the  average  miner  as  well,  who 
expects  and  desires  great  things  from  the  institution — a  condition 
of  affairs  which  probably  results  from  the  difficulty  of  working 
complicated  gold  and  silver  ores,  the  long  struggle  to  find  adequate 
means,  and  the  feeling  that  the  losses  in  operation  are  still  far  too 


The  people  of  that  region  are,  therefore,  right  in  determining 
to  have  their  own  school,  which  shall  make  the  peculiar  needs  of 
their  mines  its  especial  study,  and  shall  also  introduce  the  many 
remarkable  innovations  they  have  made,  and  which  have  never  yet 
been  adequately  studied,  in  the  metallurgy  of  gold  and  silver,  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  world.  The  study  of  American  metallurgy 
is  one  of  the  most  important  tasks  our  schools  nave  before  them. 
Our  knowledge  of  metallurgical  science  is  almost  all  drawn  from 
European  sources ;  the  travels  of  young  engineers  are  made  in 
Europe,  and  meanwhile  our  own  metallurgy  is  neglected.  It  is 
true  that  it  is  behind  the  foreign  methods  in  some  respects,  but  it 
is  in  advance  in  others,  and  at  all  events  no  general  improvement 
can  be  expected  until  its  present  condition  is  understood  and  ex- 
plained. But  while  thus  giving  peculiar  and  natural  importance 
to  their  own  mines,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  will  not  neglect  the 
study  of  general  mining  science  ;  that  they  will  not  fail  to  give 
their  school  a  distinct  active  existence,  to  employ  the  best-informed 
and  most  scientific  men,  and  to  spare  no  pains  to  make  it  what 
New  York  has  already  become,  one  of  the  best  schools  in  the 
world — more  scientific  than  Freiberg,  more  practical  than  Paris. 

The  school  in  New  York  was  founded  in  1864.  Its  beginning 
was  apparently  not  very  promising,  and  yet  its  success  was  really 
assured  from  the  first.  Placed  for  the  first  year  in  three  or  four 
cellars  of  the  Columbia  College  buildings,  its  appointments  were 


Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States.  23 

necessarily  imperfect,  and  the  difficulties  in  its  way  were  very 
great.  But  in  one  respect  its  future  looked  bright.  It  was  thought 
that  the  school  would  be  considered  fairly  established  if  twelve 
students  presented  themselves.  The  number  was  twenty  on  the 
opening  day,  and  before  the  year  was  out  nearly  fifty  young  men 
had  joined.  The  next  year  a  building  for  laboratories,  collections, 
and  lecture-rooms  was  ready,  and  the  number  of  students  was 
about  ninety,  increasing  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  the  third  year. 
Since  the  start,  in  1864,  more  than  three  hundred  young  men  have 
entered,  some  for  the  full  course  and  some  for  special  studies. 
This  gives  an  average  of  fifty  new  pupils  a  year. 

The  course  of  study  is  now  divided  into  five  parallel  divisions : 
mining  engineering ;  civil  engineering ;  metallurgy ;  geology,  and 
natural  history  ;  analytical  and  applied  chemistry.  A  student  can 
pursue  any  one  of  these,  and  take  the  degree  of  Engineer  of  Mines, 
Civil  Engineer,  or  Bachelor  of  Philosophy.  The  course  of  study 
occupies  three  years  for  the  two  former,  and  four  years  for  the 
last  degree.  There  is  also  a  preparatory  year  for  those  who  desire 
to  be  well  grounded  in  the  necessary  elementary  studies. 

The  construction  of  a  school  building,  and  the  provision  of 
apparatus,  is  very  far  from  being  all  the  work  accomplished  in  the 
six  years'  life  of  this  institution.  The  literature  of  the  mining 
profession  in  the  English  language  is  very  imperfect,  and  it  was 
impossible  to  conduct  the  school  in  any  other  way  than  by  lectures. 
These  lectures,  too,  had  to  be  very  difi'erent  from  those  delivered  in 
German  schools.  There  the  professor  not  infrequently  delivers  a 
loose,  often  rambling,  often  too  dry,  often  too  agreeable  lecture, 
the  object  of  which,  in  ordinary  cases,  is  merely  to  point  out  to 
the  pupil  what  direction  he  should  give  to  his  studies.  He  is 
expected  to  go  home,  and,  with  the  lecture  as  his  guide,  to  pore  over 
his  books,  obtaining  his  real  information  from  them.  The  cases 
where  the  lectures  of  the  professor  are  expected  to  be  the  only 
or  principal  source  of  knowledge  are  comparatively  rare.  Here 
it  is  very  different.  The  lectures  are  sometimes  all  the  student  has. 
They  must,  therefore,  be  very  full  in  fact,  but  also  well  condensed 
in  language,  or  the  course  would  become  interminable.  This 
necessity  is  far  from  being  a  disadvantage.  The  lectures  delivered 
in  New  York  have  the  value  of  original  examinations  into  the 
sciences  they  discuss,  and  when  they  are  published,  as  is  to  be 
hoped  they  will  be  in  good  time,  the  body  of  mining  science  as 


24  Mining  Schools  in  the  United  States. 

contained  in  American  text-books  will  be  very  different  from  that 
possessed  by  any  other  country. 

I  have  spoken  above  of  the  immense  labor  required  to  carry  on 
a  mining  school,  and  the  heterogeneous  character  of  its  operations. 
Of  this  the  school  under  discussion  is  a  good  example.  Where 
there  was  not  a  specimen,  a  crucible,  or  a  furnace,  six  years  have 
sufficed  for  the  collection  of  seventy-five  thousand  specimens,  illus- 
trating geology,  mineralogy,  and  metallurgy  ;  of  models  of  furnaces, 
machines,  crystals,  geometrical  sections ;  of  a  library  of  three 
thousand  volumes  ;  of  laboratories  for  assay  and  for  chemical  opera- 
tions, which  are  larger  and  better  than  those  of  any  other  mining 
school  in  the  world.  The  value  of  all  these  must  be  close  on  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  the  work  has  been  enormous.*  Nor 
can  a  good  school  be  established  with  less  labor  or  less  expense. 
But  the  results  are  commensurately  great.  Among  all  the  most 
famous  schools  in  the  world,  there  is  not  one  so  well  supplied  with 
apparatus,  and  not  one  where  all  the  departments  are  carried  on 
with  the  same  equal  care.  Remarkable  as  it  may  seem,  no  school 
in  Europe,  unless  that  in  St.  Petersburg  is  to  be  excepted,  can 
compare  with  this  in  the  appointments  either  of  its  chemical  or 
its  assay  laboratories. 

If  the  other  schools  which  are  to  be  founded  in  this  country  are 
established  with  equal  care,  fifty  years  will  see  a  great  change  for 
the  better  in  American  mines.  The  enormous  losses  which  are 
to-day  experienced,  even  in  the  best  conducted  works,  and  the 
absurdities  which  are  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  mining,  will  pass 
away  with  the  ignorance  that  causes  them. 

*  The  cost  of  this  school  for  the  last  five  years  of  its  existence  has  been 
$248,049,  and  its  receipts  from  students  $82,134.  The  first  year,  which  was 
exceptional,  cost  only  about  $28,000,  but  the  average  payments  are  very 
nearly  $50,000,  and  the  average  receipts  $16,000.  These  figures  may  be 
studied  with  advantage  by  those  who  would  be  glad  to  see  the  country  filled 
with  schools  of  this  kind. 


JOHN  A.  CHURCH, 

ENGINEER  OF  MIKES  AND  METALLURGIST, 


Plans  and  Specifications  prepared  for  the  General  Treatment 
containing 

GOLD,     SILVER,    LEAD,    POPPER, 

and  for  the 

STEAM     PROCESS     OF     DESILVERIZATION     BY     ZINC, 
CHLORINATIOISr, 

Extraction  of  Silver  by  the  Wet  way,  Extraction  of  Copper  by  the  Wet  way, 


39  PARK  ROW,  NEW  YORK, 

PFFICE    OF  THE   y^RMY   ^    NAVY    JOURNAL. 
P.  O.  Box  3201. 


.  C.BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


533^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


